Jacob's Ladder Part 14

"By all means," Dauncey acquiesced, reaching promptly for his hat.

CHAPTER X

Houses sprang up like mushrooms on the Cropstone Wood Estate, and rents were soon at a premium. Mr. Littleham's activities were transferred, by arrangement with Jacob, to a builder of more conservative type, and the Estate speedily became one of the show places of the neighbourhood. It combined the conveniences of a suburb with the advantages of a garden city. The special motor-omnibuses run by the Company, connected the place with the railway. The telephone company were induced to open an exchange, and the Cropstone tradespeople, speedily abandoning their att.i.tude of benevolent indifference, tumbled over themselves in their anxiety to obtain the orders of the neighbourhood. Jacob somewhat surrept.i.tiously furnished a room for himself over the offices of the company and, soon after the coming of Mrs. Bultiwell and her daughter, paid a visit to the place.

In fear and trembling he stole out, after an early dinner on the night of his arrival, and, seated on a hummock at the top of the ridge, looked down at the little colony.

It was not long before the expected happened. A girl in a white gown appeared in the garden immediately below him, singing softly to herself and wielding a watering can. Presently she saw Jacob and paused in her task. Jacob raised his hat and she came slowly towards him. His heart thumped against his ribs. He thought of "Maud" and other sentimental poems, where the heroine was scornful and of high degree, and the lover very much her slave. Sybil Bultiwell's expression was certainly not encouraging.

"You don't mean to tell me, Mr. Pratt," she began coldly, "that you are coming to live out here yourself?"

"No idea of it," Jacob hastened to explain, as he sprang to his feet.

"I have just furnished a room over the office, so as to spend a night or two here, now and then, and see that everything is going on all right. A new enterprise like this needs a watchful eye. No intention of making a nuisance of myself, I can promise you, Miss Bultiwell."

In her relief she forgot that the watering can was half full. Jacob stepped quickly backwards, glancing a little disconsolately at his bespattered trousers.

"I am exceedingly sorry, Mr. Pratt," she apologised, biting her lip.

"No consequence at all," he a.s.sured her. "My fault entirely. By the bye, I hope you are quite comfortable. No complaints?"

"None whatever," she conceded a little grudgingly.

"Water supply all right?"

"Quite."

"And the lighting?"

"Excellent. In fact," the girl went on bitterly, "the place is a perfect Paradise for paupers and people who have to earn their own living."

"There is no need for you to do that," he ventured.

She looked at him in most disconcerting fas.h.i.+on. All the pleasant lights which lurked sometimes in her blue eyes seemed transformed into a hard stare. Her eyebrows were drawn together in an ominous frown.

Her chin was uplifted.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

Jacob hesitated, floundered and was lost. Not a word of all the eloquence which was stored up in his heart could pa.s.s his lips. He who had already made a start, and later on was to hold his own in the world of unexpected happenings, shrank like a coward from the mute antagonism in the girl's eyes.

"You know," he faltered.

"The only alternative I am aware of to earning my own living," she said quietly, "is charity. Were you proposing to offer me a share of your wonderful fortune?"

"Only if I myself were attached to it," he answered, with a spark of courage.

She turned and looked at him.

"I am afraid," she said, "that you are inclined to take advantage of your position, Mr. Pratt."

"I want to say nothing to worry or annoy you," he a.s.sured her. "It is only an accident that I am interested in this estate. I am not your benefactor. You pay your rent and you are quite independent."

"If I felt that it were otherwise," she replied, "we should not be here."

"I am sure of it," he declared. "I am only taking the privilege of every man who is honest, in telling the truth to the girl whom he prefers to any one else in the world."

"You are an ardent lover, Mr. Pratt," she scoffed.

"If I don't say any more," he retorted, "it is because you paralyse me. You won't let me speak."

"And I don't intend to," she answered coldly. "If you wish to retain any measure of my friends.h.i.+p at all, you will keep your personal feelings with regard to me to yourself."

Jacob for a moment cursed life, cursed himself, his nervousness, and the whole situation. A little breeze came stealing down the hillside, bringing with it an odour of new-mown hay, of honeysuckle and wild roses from the flower-wreathed hedges. The girl lifted her head and her expression softened.

"It is a wonderful country, this," she admitted. "You are to be congratulated upon having discovered it, Mr. Pratt. We ought to consider ourselves very fortunate, my mother and I, in having such a pleasant home."

"It isn't half good enough for you," he declared bluntly.

She treated him to one of her sudden vagaries. All the discontent seemed to fade in a moment from her face. Her eyes laughed into his, her mouth softened into a most attractive curve.

"Some day," she said, as she turned away, "I may find my palace, but I don't think that you will be the landlord, Mr. Pratt.--Bother!"

Her ill-temper suddenly returned. A tall, elderly lady had issued from the house and was leaning over the gate. She was of a severe type of countenance, and Jacob remembered with a s.h.i.+ver her demeanour on his visit to the Manor House in the days of the Bultiwell prosperity. She welcomed him now, however, with a most gracious smile, and beckoned him to advance.

"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Pratt," she said, as they shook hands.

"I have not had an opportunity of congratulating you upon your access to fortune."

"Very good of you, I'm sure," Jacob murmured.

"We," Mrs. Bultiwell continued, "are progressing, as you perceive, in the opposite direction. I suppose it is an idea of mine, but I feel all the time as though I were living in a sort of glorified almshouse."

"It must seem very small to you after the Manor," Jacob replied politely, "but the feeling you have spoken of is entirely misplaced.

The Estate is conducted as a business enterprise, and will, without doubt, show a profit."

"You are, I believe," Mrs. Bultiwell said, "connected with the Estate?"

Jacob admitted the fact. Sybil, who had recommenced her watering, drew a little closer.

"There are a few things," Mrs. Bultiwell observed, "to which I think the attention of the manager should be drawn. In the first place, the garden. It all requires digging up."

"Surely that is a matter for the tenants," Sybil intervened.

"Nothing of the sort," Jacob p.r.o.nounced. "It is a very careless omission on the part of the owners. I will give orders concerning it to-morrow."

Mrs. Bultiwell inclined her head approvingly. Having once tasted blood, she was unwilling to let her victim go.

"If you will step inside for a moment, Mr. Pratt," she went on, "there are one or two little things I should like to point out to you. The cupboard in Sybil's room--"